Blackout in NYC
Ekev
This week Rhanni and I took our kids for a few days to a kosher farm. We got to see the ducks, the horses, the cows, the goats, the sheep, the kittens, and…the spiders, flies and mosquitoes. We even had the good fortune of seeing a few families from our schul who were also vacationing on that same farm.
Going to a farm with a three year old is an incredible experience. Everything on a farm for a three year old is so fresh, so exciting, so much fun. As my daughter said, “This is amazing. I love this place.”
When you see that kind of excitement and love of life, you ask yourself how do we bottle it and make sure that it never disappears. How do we keep the love of life alive?
Life isn’t always the way it appears to a three year old. It isn’t always so much fun. Looking around this room, I see many people who have been given very great challenges in life—many great hardships. Ein bayit asher ein sham meit—There is no house that has not had its share of hardships and trouble.
Yet, our Torah commands us to love God (and that means to love life). This morning we read from the Torah the second paragraph of the Shema, which we are commanded to read twice every day.
Vehayah im shamoa tishmau el mitzvotai asher anochi metzavhe etchem hayom leahavah et hashem eolkeichem u-leavdo bekhol levavchem u-ve-khol nafshechem. You shall listen to my commandments to love Hashem, your God, and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.
We can be told to serve God. That’s pretty easy. Give charity. Daven three times a day. Eat Matzah on Pesach. How can we be told to love God? But that’s what we are told. Ve-ahavtah et hashem elokekhah bekhol levavkhah u-vekhol nafshekhah. You must love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
That is the paradox. Life is hard. But we are told that even though it is hard, we must love God.
So how are we supposed to do that? How are we supposed to force ourselves into loving God?
Our rabbis say that the key to loving God is found within the Shema. Vehayu hadevarim haeleh asher anokhi metzvakhah hayom al levavekhah…. You shall place these words on your heart….
Says the Sefer Hahinukh (13th c.): Lefi she-neemar veahavtah. It says you must love. Eini yodea keitzad ohev adam hamakom. But I still don’t know how someone is to love God. Talmud lomar, Vehayu hadevarim haeleh asher anokhi metzvakhah hayom al levavekhah, Says the Torah, “These words which I command you today shall be on your heart. “Shemitokh kach atah makir mi-sheamar vehayah haolam, for as a result of this you will recognize the One who spoke and the world came into existence.” She-im hitbonenut batorah tityashev ahavah beleb be-hechrech, through deep reflection in Torah study one comes willy-nilly to love God.
The argument of the Hinukh is that by immersing ourselves in Torah study we will come to love God with great passion and excitement. We will fall romantically love to such a degree that all day long we will long to unite with God. All day we will dream about our next encounter with God.
I think I know what some of you might be thinking. How is studying Torah going to cause me to love God deeply and passionately.
Well, it will. But you have to give it a chance. In order, for Torah study to bring you to love of God, it has to be done with both breadth and depth.
Depth means not settling for surface approaches or easy answers. It has to be approached with same passion that one approaches the things they love in life. It has to be invested in seriously.
Breadth means recognizing that the teachings of Torah are present in nearly every facet of our life. Recognizing that Torah is not a static text combined to a study hall, but that it illuminates our daily lives.
That’s one way of coming to love God. It means immersing oneself in serious Torah study, maintaining a life of intellectual pursuit of God, and analyzing God through the abstract contemplation.
It means setting aside hours a week to study Torah. It means taking time off and attending classes or going to programs like Lishmah (Sept. 14). That’s the approach that the rabbis say will lead one to love God.
But this week we learned that there is another way to learn how to love God. Both the first and second paragraph of Shemah talk about the commandment to love God. (Veahavta et hashem elokekhah—le-ahavah et hashem elokeichem). But it is only in the second paragraph of Shema that we are warned that if we don’t love God there are serious consequences—the earth will be barren, the dew will dry up, and you will be banished from your land.
These curses or warnings appear only in the second paragraph and not in the first. The point is there are two ways to learn to love God. In the first paragraph of Shema we are told: love God by analyzing Him, by understanding His nature. However, in the second paragraph we are told love God because look how the world depends upon Him. Look at all the wonderful things in the world that God created.
This is the feeling that I had over the past twenty –four hours. In a heartbeat, I saw the world the way I had never seen it before. As I sat in my apartment without electricity or water, I knew things were going to be ok. But at the same time, I saw how fragile our existence is. How close we are to complete chaos. How close we are to total helplessness.
The blackout taught us that as much as we feel we are in control, we are totally dependent upon the will of God. The blackout taught us about how to love God. Love God for what he provides on a daily basis. Love God the way a young child loves a parent. It’s true that a child doesn’t always do what a parent wants, but the child loves the parent unconditionally for providing everything in this world.
That’s the lesson of the two paragraphs of Shema. There are two ways to love God. One way is tolove God by coming to understand Him through study of Torah. And a second, complementary approach is to love God unconditionally out of gratefulness and appreciation.
That’s what the blackout reminded me of. It reminded me to look at the world the way a three year-old looks at. It reminded me about how quickly our lives and our world can be turned over. It reminded me to love God.